by paul washer

This message was delivered to The Revival Conference in Atlanta Georgia, on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008. There was a stunned silence for 20 minutes after the message was delivered.

In short; It does little good for men to cry out for extra-Biblical manifestations, when Biblical principles are violated.
There is little reason for the devil and evil men to oppose a man praying for revival unless he is also laboring for reformation.

Yes, it starts off a little slow, but trust me, it builds. I have cleaned up the audio a little, and it (audio only) can be found here.

_Some of us learnt in school biology classes, to dissect frogs. But the frog always died. Dissection carries that risk.

Theology is the science of dissecting God in order to understand Him better. It has it's benefits, but 'understanding' God better rarely fed or warmed anyone.

American preacher Henry Ward Beecher once said, "Theology is only our ideas of truth, classified and arranged." On another occasion he said, "Theology is a science of mind, applied to God."

Humans can study each other all they like,  putting themselves and others in well arranged little boxes, but until they engage each other, nothing really interesting happens.

God's no different. We can study Him all we want, but until we engage Him, nothing really interesting happens.

If our Theology places rules above relationship then it is bad theology.

The story goes that a visitor to the Australian outback commented on the fact that the cattle stations (ranches) had no fences. The grazier (rancher) responded,

"You don't need fences when you have wells!"

How well this illustrates the 'law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus' in regard to our relationships.

(Shamelessly stolen from David Orton at www.lifemessenger.org)
 

In a world where Christian brothers and sisters are being martyred by the thousands, possibly at a greater rate than ever before in recorded history, Western Christians pursue their edifice complex, building more and greater churches as monuments to our opaque stupidity, to house the mental midgets we have produced by the invincible ignorance to which we have molded them by our denominational dogmas. We cheer our dogma dictocrats in our own unique liturgical language as we battle each other from our creedal trenches, blamestorming, while the world goes blithely on, and those who aren't directly involved in the battle for belief are usually still suffering the symptoms of orthodoxy overload.

Think I am overstating it? Consider this. Jesus really didn't leave us a long list of rules, but amongst them were two that stood out. (1) love one another, and (2) teach others what I have taught you.

So how's that working out for us?  From all the  different denominations in the USA that we use to celebrate our differences as compared with loving one another, less than $1 out of every $1,000 collected goes to evangelize the over 800 ethnic groups in the world who may well know the logo for Coca Cola, but still have never even heard the name of Jesus Christ.

Disciple? Yes!

Christian? Maybe not in the common sense.

Can you imagine Renoir learning to paint by numbers? You have probably seen the kind of books where the picture is all laid out on the page and all you need to do is to fill in the numbered spaces with the color corresponding to the number you find there. Relationship with the Universal Spirit is to authentic spirituality, what painting by numbers is to religion.

Karl Marx said, "religion is the opiate of the people" and proceeded to teach a new religion to attempt to bring communism to a great many people.

Just another religion, and less durable than most.

Rules and self perpetuating, dictocratic leadership, replace love of country and fellow man.

When religion replaces relationship, the Church (a people) becomes a church (the building). The man on the cross is replaced by the symbol of the cross. Relationship is replaced by rules, and suddenly we are all painting by numbers.

Jesus said, "I no longer call you servants, but now I call you friends".

Beyond religion lies relationship which once savored, defies religion to ever compete.

Jesus didn't say, "Come and be religious. He said, "Come unto me".

I'LL SEE YOUR VERSE AND RAISE YOU A CHAPTER

Verse victims, and chapter chumps.

Do you know people whose lives have been spent in unnecessary guilt, spiritual abuse, stunted growth and as a stranger to God's grace, because they were held hostage to Bible Bandits, God Wallopers and Dogma Dictocrats.

This is a distinct characteristic of religion. Possibly the saddest part of this is that those who teach by proof texting (a verse here and a verse there, usually drawn out of context), are mostly sincere. But no matter how many people repeat a lie, it still doesn't become the truth.

If you have heard a religious teacher refer to any of the following you have been listening to twisted scripture.

And before you wish to become righteously indignant, you might want to consider the evidence provided.

We all know the one about money being the root of all evil, but how about:-

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.  (Jesus speaking in John 12:32). It doesn't exist without inserting extra unrelated words into the original text).

How about:- "God inhabits the praises of His people"?

(Nowhere in any Bible, any version!)

or... Grace is unmerited favor.

If grace is unmerited favor, then why do only the humble get it? 1 Peter 5:5.

How about "make Jesus the Lord of your life"? Not mentioned even once.

Ever heard of the 'sinners prayer'? Not in the Bible! No, Really!.

Or how about "You will know people by their fruits"? Oh really? Was that actually referring to all Christians? Or is it, in context, referring to those who consider themselves prophets?

The list goes on for as long as we permit religion to lead us by the nose.

MY KARMA JUST RAN OVER YOUR DOGMA

When certain cells in the body attack other cells in the body, we call it cancer.

But when certain cells in the Body of Christ attack other cells in the Body of Christ we call it "defending the faith".

Jesus said "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you". (Joh 15:12-14)

For 2 millennia, the Devil has seen to it that Christians destroy each other with religious racism from their creedal trenches. John Calvin sneered as he burnt his theologically different, fellow protestant, Michael Servetus at the stake for holding to a disagreeable theology. That's the same Michael Servetus who discovered the cardiovascular pulmonary system, the benefits of which were delayed due to the burning along with Servitus of as many of his books as the Church could find. Calvin thought it proper to arrest him after recognizing him attending church, and presumably out of Christian charity, had the execution stake piled with green wood so that Servitus took fully 30 minutes to die. Some Christians haven't changed much

More protestants were martyred over adult baptism alone, by other protestants, than by the whole Spanish Inquisition.

Larry Norman said, "The Beatles sang "All you need is love" and then they broke up."  

But the Bible says, "But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him." (1Co 6:17)

The man said it right when he said that religion is the opiate of the people. Jesus didn't say, "Come and be religious. He said, "Come unto me".

Ritual and performance is man's way of reaching God.

Relationship built around a person (Jesus Christ) is God's way of reaching man.

The two are mutually exclusive.

OverSaved.